Celebrating life
in the age of ReasonEditor of
libertarian magazine: Our time is hereBy Jeff Bercovici

Itís not often that
those on opposite sides of the political divide find themselves seeing eye
to eye, but one thing they're usually able to agree about is Reason
magazine.
They don't much like it.
A 33-year-old monthly published by the Los Angeles-based Reason Foundation,
Reason is the leading magazine of libertarian thought.
Right-wingers blast
it for its stance on gay rights and drug legalization. Lefties abhor its
advocacy of gun rights and distaste for corporate regulation.
Too bad for them, says editor in chief Nick
Gillespie, because Reason isn't going anywhere.
"We live in a pretty libertarian society already in the sense that
most people think they should be in charge of their own lives," says
Gillespie.
"The old command-and-control thing where big government or
religion tells you what to do--that's on the ash heaps of history."
The magazine is growing, with circulation rising from 40,000 to
60,000 over the last decade, and itís been receiving more attention than
ever in recent weeks in the debate over whether new anti-terrorism legislation
will
threaten some civil liberties.
Gillespie cites the increase in circulation as evidence that
libertarianism may be gaining adherents, something he regards as inevitable.
"It's a philosophy or ideology of the future precisely
because it's most in accord with where society is, where technology is,
where innovations lie," he says.
"We're in a world where it's easier and
easier to escape people trying to control your life."
Gillespie joined Reason in 1993 and became editor in chief
last year. A former editor of music and entertainment magazines, his
ambition from the start was to bring more cultural perspective to the
magazine. The cover story of this year's June issue was on the Beatles, and
the November issue contains a lengthy essay on the career of Bob Dylan.
"It celebrated the fact that heís the most inauthentic
singer/songwriter around," says Gillespie. "He changes his persona with
virtually every record. It's part of the American genius."
Libertarianism has just as much to say about art
and culture as it does about political or financial policy, he says.
"Our attitude towards culture is very different from that of
a right-wing magazine or left-wing magazine," he says. "They tend to view
culture as didactic--they want culture to teach the masses.
"A right-winger
wants to tell people how to live a good and proper life in conservative
terms, while on the left they look at culture somewhat suspiciously. They
think it's big corporations forcing people to buy stuff they don't want to
buy."
Gillespie says the drift of American social
convention and popular culture over the last several decades reflects the
influence of libertarian thought.
"America is so much less uptight. Thereís so much more
freedom to be freakish," he says.
"There is no Top 40 anymore. There's no mainstream music at
all anymore.
"Gay people can live their own lives without having to be
closeted. Men and women who aren't married can live together. You can work
in an office without having to wear a fucking suit to work every day."
Or you can ditch the office altogether, like Gillespie, who works from his
home in Oxford, Ohio. Reasonís staff of 13 is distributed all across the
country, with people living in Los Angeles, Washington D.C., Connecticut and
Arizona.
"It's a very dispersed, decentralized workforce, which accords very well
with our general ideology and philosophy," says Gillespie.
"What I've been
saying lately is that it would take at least $2 in postage to infect us all
with anthrax."